I'm not saying there are no good amateur philosophers. I am saying there are not enough good enough amateur philosophers to iindicate that the professionals are systematically underperformi.ng by comparison.
I'm not saying there are .ni good amateur philosophers. I am saying there are not enough good enough amateur philosophers to iindicate that the professionals are systematically underperforming.
There are multiple problems with this response. First, I already outlined how "X is performing better than Y" is not the only metric to decide that "Y is performing badly" or "Y could perform better." To expand on that point, since it apparently didn't occur the last time, it might help to consider other fields that currently have ser...
Why Talk to Philosophers? Part I. by philosopher of science Wayne Myrvold.
See also Sean Carroll's own blog entry, Physicists Should Stop Saying Silly Things about Philosophy.
Sean classifies the disparaging comments physicists make about philosophy as follows: "Roughly speaking, physicists tend to have three different kinds of lazy critiques of philosophy: one that is totally dopey, one that is frustratingly annoying, and one that is deeply depressing". Specifically:
He counters each argument presented.
Personally, I am underwhelmed, since he does not address the point of view that philosophy is great at asking interesting questions but lousy at answering them. Typically, an interesting answer to a philosophical question requires first recasting it in a falsifiable form, so that is becomes a natural science question, be it physics, cognitive sciences, AI research or something else. This is locally known as hacking away at the edges. Philosophical questions don't have philosophical answers.